>> ^GenjiKilpatrick:

Music & dance are cultural expressions.
He's expressing his interpretation of the things that are important in his social environment.
It is a distinct cultural thing to go chat up big booty hoes at the Walmart.
Just like it was a distinct cultural thing to chat up wholesome christian girls at a malt shop.
I'm saying that this video & the culture it represents are only 'awful' by your ethnocentric standard.
>> ^legacy0100:
Chasing cheap booty is considered a cultural activity? I think you're way over-thinking this Genji.
It is what it is, a terrible rap video. That's the whole irony of our upvotes, the action is a statement saying that we recognize its awfulness, and not because we support the content.



i hereby promise not to disrespect any culture differing from my own, regardless of the amount of misogyny, violence, or lechery that these cultures may promote. now please excuse me, i have to skeet skeet skeet.

Awesome, let me know what you think.


In reply to this comment by radx:
Thanks for the tip, just ordered it via Amazon.

In reply to this comment by residue:
If you find this stuff interesting, check out a book called "Here's looking at Euclid" by Alex Bellos. It's full of all sorts of weird math related things. Tricks, history and cultural diffrences in mathematics. I'm about halfway through it and it's pretty cool.

In reply to this comment by radx:
That's the kind of cultural difference I love. I love this shit, goddammit! *promote

Thanks for the tip, just ordered it via Amazon.

In reply to this comment by residue:
If you find this stuff interesting, check out a book called "Here's looking at Euclid" by Alex Bellos. It's full of all sorts of weird math related things. Tricks, history and cultural diffrences in mathematics. I'm about halfway through it and it's pretty cool.

In reply to this comment by radx:
That's the kind of cultural difference I love. I love this shit, goddammit! *promote

If you find this stuff interesting, check out a book called "Here's looking at Euclid" by Alex Bellos. It's full of all sorts of weird math related things. Tricks, history and cultural diffrences in mathematics. I'm about halfway through it and it's pretty cool.

In reply to this comment by radx:
That's the kind of cultural difference I love. I love this shit, goddammit! *promote

That's the kind of cultural difference I love. I love this shit, goddammit! *promote

Dunno if I read it here before about Avatar but we think blue people in some fantasy setting is an awesome film while Indian audiences consider that tired and redundant - they've got all that sort of stuff in their religion and mythologies. To them running about in the street singing and dancing is totally awesome.

In short it's about cultural differences. And I'd rather watch the above film rather than the likes of Inception which turns the wonder of dreaming into a moronic heist procedural. To be fair though, most Hollywood films are utter tosh. Yet to quote you, do Western audiences "sit there thinking that they're watching the best movie ever?"

>> ^Shepppard:

I really have to ask though..
I mean, it seems obvious to me, but I'm not sure.
Do Indian people actually know how terribad their movies actually are, and sit there facepalming like we do? Or do most of them not actually know anything better, and sit there thinking that they're watching the best movie ever?

Isn't there another clip where they kick off and the crowd becomes incredibly bored as the teams pass it around aimlessly?

Most of the current games in the World Cup have been like that - unfortunately. But that's a lot to do with them being early group games featuring underwhelming sides.

Still the cultural difference between the U.S.A and the rest of the world is fascinating. Regular scoring of some sort is very important for the former while the ebb and flow of a football (aka soccer apparently) match is appreciated in other respects as well - skill, commitment and style.

>> ^marinara:

I have a video that proves that the consipiracy to promote racism by disguising it as ordinary politics extends to the left as well. I present the racist miners in their racist union:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jq6zYh_wDUk&playnext_
from=TL&videos=1BrOTfLk89E


It seems you've had to go pretty far in your search for false equivalence. First, you had to leave America, and go to Canada. Second, you had to say that "the left" means unions and not political parties. Then you had to say that nationalism is racism. You also need to equate things like defiantly saying "This is a Canadian community" with stuff teabaggers say.

Even if I grant you all of the above, your real problem is that you're getting the causation backwards. In the Sudbury situation, the schism starts as a substantive ideological debate (management vs. labor), but since the ideological divide perfectly coincides with a cultural difference, some xenophobia creeps into the debate.

My argument is that with the American right, you start with the xenophobia, and have the party expressly craft their message to encourage xenophobes to adopt a political ideology because it will serve their xenophobic goals.

For that to apply to the Canadian situation, you'd need to tell me that Sudbury was already rife with anti-Brazilian sentiment, and never thought of having a union until some left-wing party came in and told them the only way to keep the Brazilians out is to scare them away by unionizing and putting in place a strong safety and environmental regulation regime. Or by trying to pool their money, buy the mine themselves, and run it as an egalitarian collective.

@Stormsinger, I see your point, but the left bitches about government too. It's the type of complaints that really differentiate it.

Right wing complaints are usually all about not wanting to be told what to do. Left wing complaints are usually more about a perceived lack of equality.

There are also cultural differences. Lamenting that the government didn't put a stop to GM's abuse of its employees just isn't something the right-wing ever does. The rights of the management are always what they're worried about, as in "government shouldn't tell me how to run my business" kind of stuff.

Implying that the law applies differently to rich and to poor, that's a left wing cultural mainstay.

I could be wrong, but his complaints don't match the teabagger party platform very well, even if his ultimate decision to deal with his grievances by commiting violence against the IRS fits it to a tee.

I've always thought people should have at least one job in some kind of service industry, just to help them realize they shouldn't be pricks to these people when they grow up. But yeah, I don't really get the anti-tip sentiment as well; I understand the cultural differences between countries and wages, but people should respect whatever culture they are visiting, not impose their values (or tipping preferences) on the host country.

In reply to this comment by blankfist:
My first job was as a bus boy/dishwasher at a Western Steer restaurant in North Carolina. I hated it. I, too, tip at least 20% and typically more depending on what I order. It figures the ones everyone else would want to label as heartless libertarians would be the ones who tip the greatest.

I'm not sure why everyone else on that post hates tipping waitresses so much.

In reply to this comment by imstellar28:
My first job was as a bus boy/dishwasher, and the waitresses I worked with made $2.13 an hour - three dollars less than minimum wage at the time. Waitresses don't just keep their tips...they have to "tip out" other people like the bus boy, etc. So as a bus boy, sometimes I would bring home $50 a night in tips from what the waitresses would give me - outside of my regular wages which were above minimum wage.

To this day, as a rule I tip 25-30% on all bills, usually with a minimum of 20%. If the person gives really lousy service - aka - charges me for extra bread etc. I subtract that out of the tip sometimes; otherwise I always tip at least 20% even if they are mediocre. For really good service (especially on low-priced bills) sometimes I'll tip upwards of 50%.

Worst tip I ever gave was -$1.00 yes I actually subtracted money from the bill and signed it on a credit card. The restaurant had a deal "$5 pitchers for domestic drafts" and I had ordered Yuengling...ended up being charged like $9.50 a pitcher when there was a sign at the very bar "Yuengling...America's oldest brewery"

It should be noted that a lot of times people penalize the waitress for problems with the cook. If the food is bad, or wrong, or late - that could be the cook's fault; many times it has nothing to do with the waitress. And if its busy, and/or the restaurant is under-staffed, how is that her fault and why should she be penalized? If it takes one hour to get your food, eat somewhere else don't be a dick to the waitress.

>> ^Crake:
"All the other large and small tribes and peoples have the first mission to perish in the revolutionary world storm."
and here's the definition of the verb "zu untergehen" - compare the original German title of the movie The Downfall: "Der Untergang"
Sorry to harp on, but optimistic mistranslation of Marx' works isn't something the world needs


Sorry to harp on, but your lack of proficiency in the German language isn't something the world needs either. "Untergehen" can be, in some instances, translated as "perish" but only in the sense of material/conceptual destruction over a period of time. For example, you can say that a culture has perished or a now-ruined city comes from a civilization that has perished. I.e.: "untergehen" is figurative and much more soft than perish. In fact, the primary meaning is "to sink". Compare untergehen and perish in the Pons dictionary. Also remember that the film "Der Untergang" is translated as "Downfall" and not "Holocaust" or "Perish" or whatever.

A more literal translation is this: "All other tribes and peoples, large and small, have from their inception this Mission, to sink in the revolutionary global storm." It simply means that all cultural differences between men and women over the world will be erased when the proletarian revolution takes effect globally. They thought once a critical mass of workers got together, the proletarian revolution would suddenly take the world by storm and bring equality/liberty/autonomy, hence the metaphor here of cultures going down the drain in favor of the "dictatorship of the proletariat".

However what it's referring to is the reason we have such an apathetic and violent bunch of binge drinking absentee parents populating our country, breeding another generation of same.

The only thing i disagree on is the bit about foreign languages. And even then only because most of the people who say that sort of thing are racists who are trying to line themselves up with people like me, who welcome anyone into a country as long as they integrate.

I think (and i would) if you go to live in another country, you should abide by their rules, customs and conventions rather than suing the government/police force/whatever else every time you're asked FOR YOUR OWN SAFETY/OTHERS/TO DO THE JOB PROPERLY to remove an item which you feel is culturally/religiously part of you. If you still can't remove it/abide by whatever is asked of you, don't do that job. To grant someone special dispensations, i believe, is inequality not equality. Everyone has an equal right to do anything they are qualified and right for, as long as they are willing to do it to the same standard required of anyone else.

A policy of not pandering to people in this way would deal with a lot of home-grown problems as well as cultural differences with others. And i'd argue that, in the long run, it'd bring different cultures together more for obvious reasons.

I've been called racist by a certain person on this website for saying this before, and if you agree with that, then i call you an unracist. In an effort to rally for equality, you overshoot the target and end up on the other side where there is still inequality just in favour of someone else.

>> ^chilaxe:
Re:"they have insufficient humanity to ask him questions, since they're obviously subhuman worms."

Netrunner, did you really write that? Bronze age liberalism is beneath you. You should be a leader of progressivism instead of someone who drags it into filth.


I was paraphrasing Chavez's attitude. Politics is as much about anti-intellectual arguments as anything, and I think this may be partially a cultural difference between our politics and the politics in Latin America. I didn't see Chavez defend himself to Fox, I saw him say "you're dishonest, and evil, and so I'm not going to tolerate you questioning me or my behavior" and walking away. I got the distinct feeling he wanted to use words more along the lines of what I said, since they're more colorful and striking.

I kinda empathize with that position, even if I think Chavez isn't exactly the most fine upstanding guy in the world himself.

As if we should know the intricacies of eastern European Trashcanistans like they can all list the all the small cultural differences between northern and southern Californians...


No matter where these guys live they are
1)male
2)idiots
3)human

Just like many of us Americans!

Though one could argue the 3rd for many of our "elected" officials

It doesn't have to be a shiny rock. In different times and cultures, different things were used. However, hard money differs from Fiat money in a very real way. Gold has a real market value, so you are just making it the common denominator. It is a known factor that is relatively stable among other known factors. Fiat can change at any given moment. Government policies can and have changed so swiftly that the price of money can pitch and throw very rapidly to very high degrees. It doesn't have to be gold, or silver even, but I think it is wise that money have a real market anchor.

edit: You can watch this is action with the value of coin melt values. Every so often, the mint have to change up coins because the inflationary policies of the land make the coinage more expensive to produce. In other words, the value of money hasn't remained as consistent to the market as the value of metals. Metals aren't perfect by any means, but our own history seems to show they are the best of what we have atm.